At the very beginning of this year, I was already worrying about our busy Spring. I was thinking about teaching 5 new classes at our first Coffee Fest event of the year, during March in New York, hosting the first session of our new Advanced Roasting Workshop, our plans to launch a new green coffee pre-blend and build more resources for new roasters, and increasing the frequency of our Roasting 101 course. Even back then, in January, I told the team, "April will be here before we know it".
And it was! In the blink of an eye, the snow had melted and the grass had started growing. Now, in the first week of May, we're enjoying (?) a little heatwave in the Twin Cities and beginning to think of our looming Summer calendar. Still, reflection brings clarity, so let's talk about the coffees we cupped in April.
Building an Affordable Blend
Since the price of green coffee started increasing earlier this year (breaking historical records in February), we started sourcing coffees for a cost-conscious pre-blend. We wanted to find coffees that played well together, tasted great at a medium and/or dark profile, and would work for both espresso and drip coffee, sometimes referred to as an "omni roast". We reached out to friends at several different importers and explained what we were looking for.
Leveraging our connections and our ability to bring in significant volumes of green coffee, we were able to source two very nice component coffees that we combined to become the first iteration of this new blend: Shop Dog. Currently, Shop Dog blend is a 60/40 blend of washed coffees from Costa Rica and Tanzania. On its own, the Costa Rica coffee tasted like dark chocolate, Runts candies, and lemon. The Tanzania had interesting herbaceous notes like sage, but was silky and complex with great sweetness.
Throughout most of March and April, we called this our "Budget Blend". Notes from early cuppings list flavors like rhubarb, white wine, fudge brownie, vanillin (the primary compound that gives vanilla its signature scent), and cooked apple. We loved a medium roast, which showcased the red fruit characteristics, and appreciated how the blend stayed sweet and clean at darker profiles. Once the profiles we dialed in, we brainstormed blend names. After much deliberation, we landed on Shop Dog because the blend is reliable and does what you ask it to do.
We plan to offer Shop Dog Blend year-round, swapping components seasonally as we do with our Espresso and Cold Brew Blends. Most importantly, we were able to keep costs down with these components and were successful in our goal of offering a great blend at under $6/lb (for the 40-lb box option).
Burundi Kayanza Rubagabaga
When it comes to coffees from Eastern Africa, Ethiopia gets more than its fair share of attention. While Ethiopia does export more coffee than any other African country, there are many other excellent producers on the continent. Burundi is a relatively small exporter of coffee, but the greens they do produce are worth a try. Known for complex acidity, tea-like body, and a balance of sweet and savory qualities, we are always excited to find a new Burundi for our menu.
The Kayanza province is located in the northern highlands of Burundi, very close to the border with Rwanda. It's no surprise, then, that this coffee reminds us of the best of both countries. Sparkling grapefruit, zippy lime and white grape, and Pink Lady apple notes are paired with brown sugar sweetness and fresh fruit flavors like peach, apricot, and cantaloupe.
One of the experienced students in our Advanced Roasting Workshop selected this coffee to work with during the two-day intensive course. His roasts showcased how special this coffee was. He iterated on several profiles, developing one that highlighted acidity, and two others that emphasized complexity, body, and depth of flavor. His roasts in the workshop were a great reminder of how small changes can impact a delicate coffee to create something special.
Bolivia Juan Carlos Huanca Gesha, Natural
Coffees that name single producers and single varietals (especially the popular heirloom varietal, Gesha) always turn heads on a menu. We love bringing in higher-end, boutique offerings for roasters to try. While they can be expensive, making a coffee like this accessible by selling a 10-lb bag of it is a great way to share the experience and help micro-roasters offer exclusive, limited-inventory coffees.
Bolivia is a very small producing country, but one of our favorites. This Gesha from producer Juan Carlos Huanca is a seriously excellent coffee and a great representation of both the country and the varietal. Rich berry notes, fruit jam, tangerine, pineapple, golden raspberry, and kumquat (a note I really try to avoid due to how pretentious it sounds - but it was true!) set this coffee apart from many other naturals. It's both delicate and substantial, balancing all of the florality of the Gesha varietal with excellent natural processing.
We brought in just one single bag of this coffee in April, and we intend to sell it exclusively in 10-lb bags until it's gone. Already, we're down to just a few dozen pounds. If you're able to taste this coffee this month, enjoy it! And let us know what you think.
Juan Carlos Huanca speaking at an event, image courtesy of Cafe Imports
Fresh Crop Single Origins
A few of our standard single-origin and blend component coffees were running low, so we restocked coffees from Peru and Guatemala with fresh crop offerings from the same regions. This meant updating tasting notes and reworking the percentages for some of our blends, in an effort to maintain consistent flavor profiles as we move into the next season.
The Peru Cajamarca Regional Select offering is the very last of the coffee that will be available from Peru during this harvest season. We love how these late-season Peru coffees become sweeter and floral. A blind cupping early last month had me convinced that this was a washed coffee from Ethiopia. I recorded notes of fresh fig, rose water, and Swedish Fish with a nice medium weight and a lingering finish. Our fresh Guatemala Huehuetenango is a familiar and comforting Central American coffee with flavors of caramel, butter pecan ice cream, warm baking spice, and orange zest.
Both of these coffees are just at home in an espresso blend as they are on a drip coffee menu at a medium roast. They're total crowd pleasers and very easy to roast across multiple profiles.
They can't all be winners
Our sensory team frequently evaluates green and roasted coffee for clients to provide feedback, tasting notes, and roasting recommendations. Sometimes, a customer bring us coffee directly from a farm and asks us to check it out before they commit to a large purchase. It's a great idea to get a second opinion anytime you're circumventing an established importer and going directly to origin to purchase greens. This coffee is an example of exactly why it's important.
This sample, from Vietnam, was a Robusta coffee with an incredibly high number of defects. The 200g sample contained eighteen Category 1 and seven Category 2 defects, with issues ranging from full blacks to dried cherry pods and several floaters. Samples like this can indicate either a very new and inexperienced producer, or that a farm is offering their "leftovers"; coffees that didn't sell from the harvest and have been reduced in price.
If you've never tasted highly defective coffee, let us save you the trouble. Our cupping notes included terms like public swimming pool, hot plastic, wet dog, and raw potato. These serious defects are sorted out of specialty-grade coffee, so it's rare to encounter them in higher-quality beans. Fortunately, our client didn't buy full bags of this coffee sight unseen, and with our feedback on this sample, they were quick to pass on it as a new menu item. Its low price is a good reminder that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Or, it's riddled with sticks and bug damage.
Yikes!
As we move into the summer months here at Mill City Roasters, we're looking forward to more fresh crop offerings from countries we haven't tasted in a while. New offerings from Ethiopia are just around the corner. There's a lot to be excited about over the next few months - we'll share the best here on the blog!
